Call Recording: Billing, Storage, and Compliance
What call recording costs, how charges reach your invoice, how your retention choice changes them, and what you are responsible for legally.
Call recording captures inbound and outbound calls placed through CommPeak Dialer and Cloud PBX, and stores them for a retention period you choose. This article covers what recording costs, how those costs reach your invoice, how your retention choice changes them, and what you are responsible for legally.
In this article:
- Your responsibilities for notice and consent
- How charges appear on your invoice
- Your complimentary three-month period
- How your retention choice affects your bill
- Accessing and exporting your recordings
IMPORTANTCommPeak provides the technical means to record calls and stores recordings on your instruction. You remain responsible for complying with the laws that apply to you and to the people you call, including giving notice and obtaining consent where required. Consent rules differ by country, and some require the consent of every party to the call.
Call recording is off by default. CommPeak accounts without a Dialer or Cloud PBX have recording switched off and are not asked to consent. When a Dialer or PBX instance is created, you and your CommPeak contact both receive an email confirming the new system and noting that recording is off. Recording starts only once you approve it - and that approval is what starts your complimentary three-month period.
To learn how to enable recording, see the Setting Up Call Recording guide.
Your responsibilities for notice and consent
CommPeak does not play any announcement on your behalf. You manage disclosure to call participants yourself, off the CommPeak platform, so you decide how participants are told that a call is recorded. Common approaches are:
- Your own IVR, before the call is bridged.
- A website notice.
- A signed end-user contract.
- Scripted verbal disclosure by agents at the start of each call.
The form of disclosure you need depends on the jurisdictions of the call participants. Rules vary by country, and some jurisdictions require prior consent from every party to the call. You are also responsible for honoring opt-outs, do-not-record requests, and consent withdrawals, and for pausing or disabling recording where the law requires it.
NOTEThese examples are provided for information only and do not constitute legal advice. CommPeak does not verify the legality of any recording, and does not verify that required disclosures were given or that required consent was obtained. Obtain your own legal advice before you record.
How charges appear on your invoice
There is no separate bill or payment process for recording. CommPeak adds recording charges as line items to your existing invoice, based on the rates in your agreement. Your invoice can include up to two line items.
| Line item | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Call Recording | The total minutes recorded during the invoice period. |
| Call Recording Storage | Recordings retained beyond their first three months. The line also shows how many minutes currently sit inside the free window. |
For your rates and a running cost estimate, go to Settings > Call Recordings in the CommPeak Portal and check the Upcoming Bill Estimate section. Figures update once per day, so the estimate reflects the most recent daily update rather than real-time activity.
Your complimentary three-month period
When you enable call recording for the first time, you get a three-month complimentary period. During it, CommPeak measures your usage and shows it on the Call Recordings page, so you can see what recording will cost before you are charged for it.
The three months run from the day you first enable recording, and switching recording off and back on later does not restart the period. After it ends, recording appears directly on your regular invoice, and your first billed invoice covers the entire cycle it falls in, including any days that overlapped the complimentary period.
Recordings you make during the complimentary period are stored under the same rule as every other recording: free of storage charge for their first three months, measured from when each recording was created, and billed on the Call Recording Storage line after that. Your retention period decides when they are deleted.
How your retention choice affects your bill
Your retention period controls how long recordings are stored before CommPeak deletes them automatically. Recordings stop incurring storage charges when they are deleted, so a longer period means more stored recordings and a higher storage line on your invoice.
You can choose 60 days, 3 months (90 days), 6 months (180 days), or 1 year (365 days). For the click-path, see Setting Up Call Recording.
The two directions behave differently, and only one of them affects recordings you already have.
- Extending retention, for example from 3 months (90 days) to 1 year (365 days), applies to all recordings, including existing ones. Your storage costs can rise right away.
- Shortening retention, for example from 1 year (365 days) to 3 months (90 days), applies only to recordings created from that point forward. Existing recordings run out their original schedule. Your storage costs fall gradually.
Switching recording off does not stop storage charges either. Recordings you already made remain stored, and billed, until the end of their retention period.
NOTEOne year is the longest retention period available. Before a recording reaches it, CommPeak emails you a reminder to return to the Portal and complete an additional consent step, which extends retention by another year - much like a yearly policy renewal. If you don't complete it, recording is switched off and your stored recordings are at risk of deletion.
IMPORTANTAutomatic deletion is permanent and irreversible, whether CommPeak removes a recording at the end of its retention period or you delete it yourself. If you are subject to a legal hold, litigation preservation, or regulatory retention obligation, either select a retention period long enough to satisfy it or export the recordings you need and preserve them outside CommPeak.
Accessing and exporting your recordings
During the retention period, you can play back, download, and export recordings from the CommPeak Portal or over the S3 protocol. These actions do not add storage charges, although standard usage charges, such as bandwidth, API, and S3 fees, may apply. For details on setting up S3 access, see the Recording Access Accounts guide.
Once you export or download a recording, it sits under your exclusive control. You are responsible for its security, for how you store and share it, and for any audit trail your own obligations require.
You can also encrypt your recordings with keys only you control. For the setup steps and what happens if you lose your passphrase, see Setting Up Call Recording.
These recording terms replace any earlier CommPeak storage-duration policy, FAQ, or addendum covering call recording and retention.
Updated 2 days ago